Colby Cohen scored the game winner 3:54 into overtime while on a power play, as the No. 3 Boston University Terriers triumphed in a thriller against the No. 9 Mass.-Lowell River Hawks in front of 5,496 at Tsongas arena.
Terriers’ defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk passed the puck from the point over to Colby Cohen, who was positioned along the left side boards, and he fed it back to Shattenkirk, who fed it back to Cohen for the one-timer. David Warsofsky was screening River Hawks’ goalie Carter Hutton in front, and Cohen’s shot went right past Hutton.
“Good screen by Dave, good pass by ‘Schatty’ and a little luck on the shot,” said Cohen, “Good job by the power play unit to get out there and work it. I mean, a lot of times in overtime you get too excited, but you know we settled it down and we won the puck battles and ultimately [it] led to a shot with a good screen.”
Great goaltending and defense was the storyline of the first period.
The River Hawks had the best chance when Cohen was whistled for a holding penalty at 19:37.
Mass.-Lowell won the faceoff and Nick Schaus took a shot from the point. Kieran Millan made a nice pad save, but kicked the rebound out to River Hawk Maury Edwards. Edwards shot back on net, and Millan slid over to make the save.
Both teams came out hungry in the second, scoring five goals combined, with the River Hawks taking the lead 3-2 into the third.
The Terriers jumped out to a 1-0 lead when BU forward Alex Chaisson stole the puck in the neutral zone and skated in and ripped a shot over Hutton’s left shoulder at 6:42.
The Rivers Hawks answered with the equalizer four minutes later when Paul Worthington got the rebound and put it into an open net.
The Terriers responded quickly with a two-on-one short-handed goal by Warsofsky. Warsofsky got a beautiful feed from Chris Connolly and beat Hutton on his blocker side.
Mass.-Lowell tied it up less than two minutes later when forward Michael Sheu received the puck off the back boards and knocked it in past Millan.
Michael Budd gave the River Hawks the lead when David Vallorani made a pass across the slot and Budd shot the puck into the back of the net.
The Terriers’ Zach Cohen tied the game up at 1:49 into the third period when he shot the puck from the left faceoff circle over Hutton’s shoulder.
Warsofsky gave the Terries the lead at 14:22 of the third.
Again, it didn’t take long for Mass.-Lowell to take tie it up. Schaus passed the puck from the side of the net out in front. Matt Ferreira took the shot, but didn’t get all of it and it trickled past Millan and hit the far post. Schaus rotated over to the other side and buried it in.
Both teams had their chances to take the lead at the end of the period, but it ended tied and headed into overtime.
“Overall, that was an early season game,” said Terriers’ coach Jack Parker. “You talk about the ebbs and flows, it was mistakes and good plays, mistakes and then good plays. It was nice for us to get five goals, that’s for sure. We have been struggling to score goals ; to get five tonight is big.”
Coach Blais MacDonald was happy with the way his team competed tonight.
“I was very proud with how our team played and how we responded because we had to play from behind the entire game and we have to give BU credit, they are a very good team, but I thought we responded with every opportunity.”
The teams finish the home-and-home tomorrow at Agganis Arena at 7:00 p.m.
